Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Mehdi Hoffman There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Alex Deleon DODESKADEN, 1970. Rarely Seen Kurosawa masterpiece viewed at the ENCORE theater, Hollywood - An expressionistic pageant of The Human Comedy that ranks with the best of Kurosawa: Written as Herman Pevner for the Rafu Shimpo, Japanese daily of Los Angeles. (Spring 1975). When Dodes'kaden first came out five years ago it was not too well received, mainly because the Japanese public had come to expect a certain kind of Picture from Master director Akira Kurosawa -- movies with lots of samurai action, a definite story line, and especially, lots of Toshire Mifune, the Japanese equivalent of John Wayne in Kurosawa films.Dodes'kaden, a Fellini-like portrait of a shanty town built from the debris of the Tokyo city dump and populated with the dregs of society with no plot to speak of and no swashbuckling central hero, was just too different and too far-out for most people to accept. Of course it is not unusual for the public to find it difficult to accept a radical change in style from an established director. When Hitchcock came out with "The Birds" a lot of people accused him of sensationalism, senility, and everything else -- now, a dozen years later, Birds is generally recognized as one of his masterpieces."Dodeskaden" was Kurosawa's first color film and, like Fellini and Antonioni before him, when he finally turned to color he went directly to surrealistic expressionism. As Antonioni in "Blowup" he had whole sections of the ground painted in bright colors to suit his vision for certain scenes, and in general the use of color in the film is not only spectacular but ingenious. Now that the real world has -- shall we say, "caught up with" Kurosawa -- vis-à- vis the absurdity of life here in 1975 -- the absurd world of Dodeskaden, 1970 May not seem so far-out after all. As for the title, "Do-des-ka-den" is the sound that a trolley car makes -- something like "clackety- clack" -- in everyday Japanese. The hero, Rokuchan, (Yoshitaka Zushi) is a strange but jolly teenage boy who has a thing about trolleys and makes a daily round of the shantytown in an imaginary trolley car shooing people from the tracks, picking up and discharging invisible passengers, and lustily shouting "do-des- ka-den!" as he goes on his merry way. Taking Rokuchan's trip with him around Hovel City we encounter an incredible variety of people including a couple of grungy alcoholic wife swapping buddies -- a striking comment on today's decadent sex-obsessed suburban mentality. The people in the film are more or less carnival mirror images of the people we see around us every day. The whole film is, in fact, a commentary on the absurd pretentious of an insane society, and the message, if there is one, is perhaps that we would all be a lot better off if we were more accepting of each other's foibles. No matter what the content of his films, Kurosawa's message has always been "Why can't people try to be a little happier?"Particularly outstanding in a cast loaded with talent is Banjun Zaburo, one of the world's cleverest screen comedians, as Mr. Shima, the little man with the epileptic tic and oversized limp -- shades of Chaplin at his best -- and Kiyoko Tange is also memorable as his Amazon-like, no-nonsense domineering wife."Dodeskaden" is an expressionistic pageant of The Human Comedy that ranks with the best of Kurosawa and, if viewed with an open mind, can only make you feel a little better about being a member of our more and more endangered human species.

Kong Ho Meng This is similar to another one of Kurosawa's films 'the Lower Depths' but instead of using theatrical comedy, this film tends towards a more realistic drama to carry out its multi-character case study. Each of the slum residents, who again like in LD are from diverse backgrounds and each of them have a story to tell, and those stories range from heartbreaking to inspirational, though mostly their pasts are not revealed so the viewers had to take a wild guess on how each of them ended up living in the slums.The plus point of this film against LD is that each character has their own arc so we can solely focus on the person matter without interruption from other characters; in LD everyone tells their stories in the same room which can be quite confusing at times. The minus point is that there seem to be a less clearer picture of the daily, mundane activities by the slum residents to carry on with their lives, aside from the scenes where the little boy begs for leftover foods. Overall, this is a very well-made movie that still put many modern movies of similar theme to shame.

Jason Forestein Most people, when they think of expressionist cinema, look to the b&w German films of the silent and early sound eras--films that emphasized canted angles, extreme contrasts of light and dark, exaggerated performance, and occasional uses of surrealism to create a dreamlike atmosphere in order to diverge from traditional, naturalistic modes of cinematic representation. If we're willing to accept that the Germans were not the only filmmakers to create expressionist cinema (and that those above-mentioned characteristics are not prerequisites for expressionist film), then I would argue that Dodes'ka-den (DKD) is a prime example of this type of film. Like Dreams, DKD is a little unhinged for a Kurosawa film, dabbling, as it does, in the unreal. However, DKD is also, unlike Dreams, a great film and probably my favorite Kurosawa picture. Why? Mostly, I think, it's the colors. This was, I believe, Kurosawa's first color film, and the man saturates the movie with vibrant primary colors, creating a completely unreal contemporary Japan. We are used to the neon lights and gleaming Tokyo skyscrapers; we are not used to a city that appears to have been colored with crayons. DKD is, as I said, a peculiar film inasmuch as many of its characters live in a junkyard, appearing to live in an alternate universe. That is, I think, the point--these are the Tokyo outsiders, the people left behind during the great move forward following World War II. The film also represents one of Kurosawa's more heartfelt movies; there is genuine sentiment here and genuine pathos (such as when the boy's father describes their dream home). It's an amazingly moving film from a man better known for stunning, John Ford-like vistas and samurais. Everyone should have known Kurosawa had in him a movie as touching and thought provoking as this (Ikiru foreshadows the emotional resonance of this film in many ways). I will also argue, to the last, that this is Kurosawa's greatest achievement. His samurai films, though capable pictures, pale in comparison to works by Kobayashi (Hara-kiri is the greatest, most intelligent samurai film committed to celluloid). Rashomon, Hidden Fortress, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Kagemusha, and Ran are all fine films, but they're merely good (and, frankly, I think that word is too generous for Hidden Fortress and Kagemusha). DKD is a great movie, as is Ikiru. They are the crown jewels that show Akira was not a one-trick samurai pony. They reveal his artistry and mastery of cinema.

Claudio Carvalho "Dô desu ka den" is the first colored movie of Master Akira Kurosawa, and surprisingly is not about samurais, ronins, warlords or battlefields. It is inside a very poor community in a slum in Tokyo, where the dwellers are homeless drunkards, beggars, tramps, abused women, losers. I do not know the reason why Kurosawa selected this tragic theme and environment to put colors, but indeed they are very sad stories, some of them heart-breaking. I personally like the touching story of the boy and his father that dream with a house of their own and built by them; the story of the retarded boy that believes he pilots a train; the story of the man that raises five children as if they were their own sons and daughters; and the story of the young woman abused by her stepfather. My vote is nine.Title (Brazil): "Dodeskaden – O Caminho da Vida" ("Dodeskaden – The Way of the Life")